Since 1974, studies have shown that cannabis has anti-tumor effects. The results of the 1974 Washington Post Study, were that cannabis’s component, THC,“slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”

In 1998, a research team at Madrid’s Complutense University discovered that THC can selectively induce programmed cell death in brain tumor cells without negatively impacting surrounding healthy cells.

No chemotherapy can match this nontoxic anti-cancer action.

The Action of Cannabinoids in Cancer Cells

A March 2002 issue of “Nature Medicine” showed that cannabis had destroyed incurable brain cancer tumors in rats by injecting them with THC.

Scientists Cure Cancer in Mice with Cannabis

Watch as cancer cells self destruct in the presence of cannabis.

Parallel experiments were performed testing the effect of THC on human brain cancer cells (glioblastoma multiforme, or GBM) and also on normal brain cells. Both types of cells were treated with the same concentration of Δ9-THC but after 20 hours only the cancer cells died. Cell death is seen in the lower right panel as cells shrinking to inanimate white spheres.